Forbes: Abolish it or shut up.

I know there's been a lot of news articles posted here lately. I've done a few myself. I try to only post ones that I think have a unique merit, and try to avoid posting every article that comes out.

My own personal intent is simply to help "arm" the rest of us. I can't speak for everyone else, but I know that I've experienced an increase in conversations at work, with family and with friends who aren't anti-gun, but more of a "on the fence" type. Or some who are considering buying their first gun, but are seeing the backlash on Facebook from their anti-gun friends and are wanting to know the arguments, and responses when they are confronted with these people.

So the articles I post are because I feel that they make a good argument. Or provide a good answer to a common question.

Nobody wants to be the guy that says, "I read it on a gun forum" so I always provide the link to the article, and because some don't like to click links on the web either out of your own internet security protocols or because, like me, you don't want to be giving "hits" to websites if you don't know what you're getting out of it. So I like to copy and paste the article as well as provide the link.

So here is one that read today that I really enjoyed and felt drives home the core of the Second Amendment argument.

It is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster&#8217;s first sense of the term&#8212;to &#8220;disregard&#8221; it.

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals&#8217; enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.

The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.

That is why the gun grabbers&#8217; assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It&#8217;s not really about the guns; it is about the government&#8217;s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.

Americans provisionally delegated a limited amount of power over themselves to government, retaining their individual sovereignty in every respect and reserving to themselves the power not delegated to government, most importantly the right and power to abolish or replace any government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Ninth Amendments, can only be properly understood and rightly interpreted in this context.

Politicians who insist on despoiling the Constitution just a little bit for some greater good (gun control for &#8220;collective security&#8221 are like a blackguard who lies to an innocent that she can yield to his advances, retain her virtue and risk getting only just a little bit pregnant&#8212;a seducer&#8217;s lie. The people either have the right to own and bear arms, or they don&#8217;t, and to the extent legislators, judges and bureaucrats disparage that right, they are violating the U.S. Constitution as it was originally conceived, and as it is currently amended. To those who would pretend the Second Amendment doesn&#8217;t exist or insist it doesn&#8217;t mean what it says, there is only one legitimate response: &#8220;If you don&#8217;t like the Second Amendment, you may try to repeal it but short of that you may not disparage and usurp it, even a little bit, as long as it remains a part of the Constitution, no exceptions, no conniving revisions, no fabricated judicial balancing acts.&#8221;

Gun control advocates attempt to avoid the real issue of gun rights&#8212;why the Founders felt so strongly about gun rights that they singled them out for special protection in the Bill of Rights&#8212;by demanding that individual rights be balanced against a counterfeit collective right to &#8220;security&#8221; from things that go bump in the night. But, the Bill of Rights was not a Bill of Entitlements that people had a right to demand from government; it was a Bill of Protections against the government itself. The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.

That is why the most egregious of the fallacious arguments used to justify gun control are designed to short-arm the citizenry (e.g., banning so-called &#8220;assault rifles&#8221 by restricting the application of the Second Amendment to apply only to arms that do not pose a threat to the government&#8217;s self-proclaimed monopoly on the use of force. To that end, the gun grabbers first must bamboozle people into believing the Second Amendment does not really protect an individual&#8217;s right to own and bear firearms.

They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment&#8217;s reference to the necessity of a &#8220;well-regulated militia&#8221; proves the amendment is all about state&#8217;s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.

The truth is, the Founders understood a &#8220;well regulated&#8221; militia to mean a militia &#8220;functioning/operating properly,&#8221; not a militia &#8220;controlled or managed by the government.&#8221; This is clearly evidenced by Alexander Hamilton&#8217;s discussion of militias in Federalist #29 and by one of the Oxford Dictionary&#8217;s archaic definitions of &#8220;regulate;&#8221; &#8220;(b) Of troops: Properly disciplined.&#8221;

The Founders intended that a well-regulated militia was to be the first, not the last line of defense against a foreign invader or social unrest. But, they also intended militias to be the last, not the first line of defense against tyrannical government. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to be the constitutional protection for a person&#8217;s musket behind the door, later the shotgun behind the door and today the M4 behind the door&#8212;a constitutional guarantee of the right of individuals to defend themselves against any and all miscreants, private or government, seeking to do them harm.

The unfettered right to own and bear arms consecrates individual sovereignty and ordains the right of self-defense. The Second Amendment symbolizes and proclaims individuals&#8217; right to defend themselves personally against any and all threatened deprivations of life, liberty or property, including attempted deprivations by the government. The symbolism of a heavily armed citizenry says loudly and unequivocally to the government, &#8220;Don&#8217;t Tread On Me.&#8221;

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence said, &#8220;When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.&#8221;

Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.

That is what prompted Madison to contrast the new national government he had helped create to the kingdoms of Europe, which he characterized as &#8220;afraid to trust the people with arms.&#8221; Madison assured his fellow Americans that under the new Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, they need never fear their government because of &#8220;the advantage of being armed.&#8221;

But, Noah Webster said it most succinctly and most eloquently:

&#8220;Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.&#8221;

That is why the Founders looked to local militias as much to provide a check&#8212;in modern parlance, a &#8220;deterrent&#8221;&#8212;against government tyranny as against an invading foreign power. Guns are individuals&#8217; own personal nuclear deterrent against their own government gone rogue. Therefore, a heavily armed citizenry is the ultimate deterrent against tyranny.

A heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression. A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government.

"Taking the gloves off" and labeling your opponent with nicknames and that kind of thing does nothing but devolve the entire debate into name calling. It achieves nothing except making you look uneducated and petty.

"Taking the gloves off" and labeling your opponent with nicknames and that kind of thing does nothing but devolve the entire debate into name calling. It achieves nothing except making you look uneducated and petty.

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Oh spare me! Remember when obama said Republicans can come along for the ride, but they have to sit in the back of the bus? I could make a very long list of name calling and death wishes spewed by liberals. Is that the best you can conjer up as rebuttal to the OP?
God help us. Ken

"Taking the gloves off" and labeling your opponent with nicknames and that kind of thing does nothing but devolve the entire debate into name calling. It achieves nothing except making you look uneducated and petty.

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I personally don't care how I "look" to you. You mean Nothing to me. You may think I am " uneducated" but I was smart enough to not be taken in by Obamas bullsh|t .

"The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals&#8217; enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest."

I don't think I like term's like gun grabbers, anti's, extremists either. I usually feel like someone who's thinking the opposite of myself about the 2nd amendment just hasn't had enough education about our constitution's history or enough trigger time to really fall in love with the hobby I so enjoy. Using a word like that might make a person on that side of the fence feel like they're stuck there for good.

Plus I think that being the most 'passionate gentleman' in an argument is very intimidating for the man who cannot keep his head and impressive to anyone who's observing it.

"Taking the gloves off" and labeling your opponent with nicknames and that kind of thing does nothing but devolve the entire debate into name calling. It achieves nothing except making you look uneducated and petty.

"Taking the gloves off" and labeling your opponent with nicknames and that kind of thing does nothing but devolve the entire debate into name calling. It achieves nothing except making you look uneducated and petty.

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Explain that to the gun control advocates who frequently refer to gun owners as "gun nuts" or "gun fetishists", and who often claim gun owners are trying to compensate for inadequacies between our legs. I see that stuff all the time on Huffington Post.

"Taking the gloves off" and labeling your opponent with nicknames and that kind of thing does nothing but devolve the entire debate into name calling. It achieves nothing except making you look uneducated and petty.

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You are the one who comes off as uneducated. You seem to believe that one can debate his rights with those who would take them. There is no debate here. You don't debate the status of your rights. There is nothing too petty said in a total defense of your rights from those who would blithely and unconstitutionally abrogate them.

Explain that to the gun control advocates who frequently refer to gun owners as "gun nuts" or "gun fetishists", and who often claim gun owners are trying to compensate for inadequacies between our legs. I see that stuff all the time on Huffington Post.

"The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals&#8217; enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest."

I don't think I like term's like gun grabbers, anti's, extremists either. I usually feel like someone who's thinking the opposite of myself about the 2nd amendment just hasn't had enough education about our constitution's history or enough trigger time to really fall in love with the hobby I so enjoy. Using a word like that might make a person on that side of the fence feel like they're stuck there for good.

Plus I think that being the most 'passionate gentleman' in an argument is very intimidating for the man who cannot keep his head and impressive to anyone who's observing it.

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I like this one a lot as well...

Some of my favorite parts:

"guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free."

" It&#8217;s not really about the guns; it is about the government&#8217;s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state."

"The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights."

"and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people."

and lastly...

"A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government."

Thank you for the article Vantage.
I agree they need to put up or shut up!!!!
I hope they choose shut up, but we all know they will try to push all they can thru at this time there is no worry about a next term and we all know they could give a rats hinnie about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I disagree with those who say they can't do this or that. They have castrated California, New York and several other states and yet the people of those states let them take away thier Freedoms.

I feel so sad for OUR country, I think to many honest law abiding gun owners will cave due to fear, intimidation or what ever is thrown towards them, than stand and fight for thier rights. It is just the way they have made the majority of the population of what was once a free country.

If they get thier way, most of the mass majority that is against them think it should cause a civil outbreak because one of thier Freedoms have been taken. It won't, how many will put thier families at risk to loose everything else that they have?

Will it happen overnight? Probably not, they will keep chipping away bit by bit till it is to late.

All I can do is pray that I am wrong, Very very wrong, and that the people will win.

Please keep writing your legislatures state and fedral and let them know how we feel, hit them with the facts, do all we can and Pray.

For those here that want to flame me for this spewing of how I see this go ahead, but before you do look around at all the other states that have castrated thier own law abiding citizens and have got away with it.

Tough times ahead. These forthcoming battles, no matter how or where fought, debated or contested could be the very thing to encourage the disparate factions among us to finally put aside their differences to achieve a common goal to maintain our Liberty. One thing is guaranteed, win or lose, the concept of Liberty; which has been long been an assumed natural state, a God-given certainty, by many of us, will be either a wistful memory or a defining moment in our history. Prepare yourself to be an example of what a Citizen-Patriot should be.

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